NYPD Honors 73 Who Died Responding to 9/11

Aidan Ryan, 7, looked at a poster honoring NYPD personnel lost on Sept. 11th outside an anniversary ceremony at Avery Fisher Hall on Thursday. Aidan’s father, Sgt. Michael Ryan, died as a result of the attacks.

At a solemn ceremony Thursday morning, 23 New York City police officers who died in the Sept. 11th attacks and 50 others who passed away of diseases related to rescue and search efforts were honored before a packed house in Lincoln Center’s elegant Avery Fisher Hall.

“Ten years after Sept. 11, we come together to remember those we lost, to honor their families and to reflect on this defining event in each of our lives and in the life of our city,” NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

One after another, family members of the deceased officers were called to the stage and given a “commemorative remembrance medallion” by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As they crossed the stage, some wives, mothers and brothers blew kisses at pictures of their dead loved ones shown on a large screen. A few children who accepted the medals wore their fathers’ police hats.

Kelly, Bloomberg, Edward Cardinal Egan and Archbishop Timothy Dolan spoke at the event. Opera singer Jessye Norman gave a special performance, and the NYPD Pipes and Drum brought the ceremony to an emotional close.

One of those honored, John Perry, was at police headquarters in downtown Manhattan filing his retirement papers on Sept. 11th when he heard that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. He was photographed helping a woman escape.

Perry was buried when the south tower collapsed. His body wasn’t found until March 2, 2002.

Joel Perry, brother of the deceased police officer, accepted the medallion along with his 8-year-old daughter Autumn. Like his brother, Joel dabbled in acting (both brothers appeared in small roles playing cops in the 2001 Robert DeNiro movie “15 Minutes”).

After the ceremony, he was trying to find NYPD Rabbi Alvin Kass, who had given the invocation. The day after his brother disappeared, Rabbi Kass tried to console an inconsolable Joel. “I wasn’t ready to hear about God on Sept. 11th,” Joel, a lawyer, recalled Thursday. “I blamed God back then. But all these years later I realize it wasn’t God’s fault — it was man’s fault.”

He said he wanted to apologize to the rabbi for being short with him 10 years ago. “The pain has lessened,” Joel said. “I’ve learned acceptance.”

Geraldine Gillis, whose son, Sgt. Rodney Gillis, was killed in the attacks, said the nearly 10 years have passed “like it was yesterday.”

“This year is a lot tougher,” she said about the lead up to the anniversary. “I really don’t know why but it has affected me a whole lot more than it did in the past couple years.”